Protecting My Copyright
baldheretic.com
baldheretic.com
So their choices are:
1) Invade your privacy, directly access your private source code and databases, and deduce how to remove the content, potentially destroying your data in the process over what might be a false claim... all of which is completely non-scalable to the millions of customers they have.
2) Edit their web server configuration to not serve that URL, and reboot the service, hundreds of times a day while this server is handling requests for thousands of websites.
3) Click the suspend site button and your site goes back online as fast as you can remove the infringing work, or file a counter-notice.
The GoDaddy "Deluxe 4GH" plan costs $6/month and could easily hold 14 web sites, and one feature they offer at this stage is "Multiple Web Sites: Unlimited".
At first it sounded like GoDaddy had simply rerouted all of her domain names to null addresses, when they could have just rerouted one of them. But no, they were providing the hosting service. If she put fourteen businesses on one account to amortise the cost among them, then she is responsible for linking them together, not GoDaddy. Presumably GoDaddy would have just shut down one hosting account -- the one that held the infringing content -- but the problem is that she only had the one hosting account.
This is why I try to keep abstraction layers. The people I research with don't hang out with my Ultimate (as in frisbee) friends or my web development colleagues; the Ultimate folks are the only ones I'm letting friend me on Facebook, and I make it a point not to preach my religion to any of the above.
Spolsky is correct that all abstraction layers are leaky, and these are too -- my professor has met my father for example, and the folks at work know that I say something quietly before lunch every day -- but there is a great value in compartmentalising. Robert Frost's neighbour confidently asserts, "good fences make good neighbours" -- I guess it's more that good neighbours respect the fences and use them to lower your own mental stress and drama.
Candice could have used a good fence between her charity and her infringing account.
Agreed, but GoDaddy could have also taken option 2) from dangrossman's post above, which happens all the time with "live" servers anyway, every time people change their own configurations through the web "control panel" for their hosting provider. For the kind of plan it looks like she had, her URLs were most likely being served by the same Apache instance as the URLs for dozens of other customers; so any time any customer changes their setup, the "web server" has to reconfigure itself. That's why servers like Apache do that on the fly, without requiring a restart.
And I applaud you for that.
"Facebook, for example, would remove the image in a matter of hours."
If the person genuinely cared about their charitable work their first email would have said. "What do I need to do to get my sites up ASAP."
Their anger should have been directed at GoDaddy. If I had received the emails you had I would have responded after 12-24 hours with. "I do not respond to slanderous, false or abusive emails. If you would like to discuss this issue please reword your email"
So there are people in this world that do not live up to your standards and react with self-righteousness (btw. <sarcasm>shocking</sarcasm>) and you suggest the right way to respond to it.
Isn't that self-righteous on its own?
It takes very little to set them off -- something as simple as a declined credit card for an advertising purchase has led to multiple accusations of "denying my child food in violation of federal child protection laws". One guy CC'd every e-mail to every United States senator and the FBI.
I just send a polite reply and try to ignore the follow-ups... communicating after there's nothing more to say on the real issue just spurs them on.
It's awesome how the internet shortens the distance between you and crazy – reach out and touch someone, indeed.
Is this the link to the book mentioned? http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
(I just googled to check the length and found this heartbreaking message on one of those cheesy Q&A sites: My grandmother has a senior picture of my mom from 1969 and I wanted a copy of it. Is the copyright for that picture up? If not is there a way for me to get a copy of it?)
And that is the book, though note it's a slightly out of date version. The final version is here:
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
It's not a great work by any means, but it's a good overview of the craziness of copyrights and patents when viewed from the perpective of economics.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/01/25/Imitated_Image_Copyr...
I can understand that someone might react against seeing their work all over the Internet used for free, and use the DMCA to prevent that. I can also understand a generous reaction, and feeling flatter instead.
While I don't agree with Ms. Borderline, I do think that if I am going to react handing take down notices, providing a way to buy the image up front it is a fair preventive measure.
After all, the internet is like a world wide getto street, and it would be naive to leave my precious jacket out night after night and be surpriced that someone finally run away with it. Attaching a price sign to it at least, and some people might respect it, while others will actually consider buying it as initial offer as oppose to a legal threat.
It doesn't work that way.
Just like you don't need to put a sign on your door saying "The belongings in this house belong to me. If you want to buy them call me on 5555-1234".
The _default_ is that if you dont own a photograph(/song/story/program/movie), then somebody else does - and unless they've explicitly permitted you some rights to use it, you have _no_ right to use it. (with some very specific "fair use" exceptions, which are far less well understood by just about everybody than they should be. If you're ever tempted to claim "fair use", make sure you know what it means first…)
I agree that in default should works the way you say, but that is theory, in practice it is not what actually happens a the OP found out. And we need to acknowledge the reality that people does not behave as theory, law, or whatever other abstract term expects (the law is so abstract that it needs a punishment machinery to be respected, it is not natural at all, and while some people will surrender their free will to goverment compliance, others will not, not even under the threat of heavy legal pain). Not realising this fact of life is naive.
You can go around beating people over their head for their wrong doings (natural or artificial), and if that makes you feel better about yourself or your position then take your measuring stick and go on your merry way.
I, on the other camp, rather attempt to figure out how people actually works, and make decisions accordingly.
Try to understand how things work vs. Do a I say or I'll beat you up. I guess that is one of the differences between tinkers and lawyers.
One book that explain tis concept better than me would be Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler.
Take Candice as an example. She's crazier than a bucket of ferrets on meth. Even normal users don't read much of the text on websites; look at any of Jakob Nielsen's eye-tracking studies. People who are task-focused (e.g., find an image for their site they're rushing to get up) read even less. Given that, how much do you think Candice will read?
And once it's on another site, people will start stealing it from there too. Coughpinterestcough.
So as someone who also tries to look at how things work, I don't think he did anything wrong here. Suddenly everybody's a publisher, and it's going to take a while to teach them about copyright. This is part of the education process.
"She's crazier than a bucket of ferrets on meth"... love it.
"how much do you think Candice will read?" A bucket of ferrets on meth... none. But that was not the only place the he found the photo.
"and it's going to take a while to teach them about copyright. This is part of the education process."... teaching, that is something that I can agree with. On the other side, in principle I cannot agree with Goya's picture "La letra con sangre entra" (Teaching by punishment, or spare the rod and spoil the child) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_letra_con_sangre_e...
If I am in a high horse, then then that kind of "teaching" is egocentric and self entitlement.
You mention egocentricism, but don't seem to realize that he is under no particular obligation to live up to your standards. Reasonable people can disagree on how to handle this. He apparently disagrees with you, possibly as a matter of morals, but more likely as a question of how best to solve a problem with limited resources.
If you really care about this problem, solve it yourself. Go make something that makes it easier for somebody like this to act the way you want than the way that's easy for them. Until then, you're just one more person telling the Little Red Hen how she should bake her bread.
Crazy lady behaved in a common-but-still-technically-wrong manner, thinking (if she thought at all) that she'd "get away with it", presumably "'cause everybody else does".
The thing is, she got caught, and none of her "but everybody _else_ does it!" defenses stand up to even the most minor scrutiny.
Note, this is a lot like speeding - (almost) everybody _does_ it, and we all try to justify ourselves with lines like "I was just keeping up with the traffic", or "the speed limit is set unreasonably low for the conditions", or "my vehicle/driving skills are significantly better than the lowest common denominator they used to calculate the safe limit" - but every now and then we get caught, and none of those justifications mean anything.
Copyright law and the DMCA might well be "wrong", but if you think so you need to lobby to get the law changed. Arbitrarily choosing the break copyright then complaining when you get caught is just like being that guy with the fast car who speeds _everywhere_ bitching about getting speeding tickets. To most (informed) people, you just became "the crazy person".
I hope he doesn't actually file suit against her. Partly because she's so obviously nuts that I'd feel a little bad. And partly because it's a bad idea to get involved in a court case with a crazy person. You may win in the end, but your lawyer can rack up some big bills keeping up with a manic loon.
I think GoDaddy is to blame in this. Taking multiple sites down for one DMCA take down request. And the blogger too seems too happy about taking sites down as he does. He should work harder (at least for GoDaddy sites) to contact the sites directly and get a license fee.
Diplomacy before nuclear war.
I agree that GoDaddy is the problem here. When people pick hosting companies, they should think a little about how well they'll be treated when something goes wrong. Because something always goes wrong eventually.
Having worked service jobs in the past, I know that the population of the area where I worked was at least 70% lawyers, judging by the number of people who'd threaten to sue me/the business/the owners/unrelated parties when they didn't get what they wanted.
http://www.texasbar.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Find_A_Lawye...
I've found the bit claiming she's the President of an organization called 'Attorneys for Special Needs Children' and in her G+ page she says 'I studied in South Texas College of Law' but she isn't claiming she's finished the studies or that she has got any title, certification, or the bar card.
> a partially disabled atty
and weakly here:
> You cost me thousands in billable time
But then directly here: (http://chicksandpolitics.com/nauseatingsagagarciaboohoo/)
> Attorney & CEO of Schwager Consulting & Marketing;
Also here:
(http://www.whenigrowupi.com/)
> though I still practice law via the Schwager Law Firm. My law practice thrives
Claims several times to be the grand-daughter of Henrik Ibsen. I have no reason to disbelieve this. But it's mildly interesting.
(http://houstonattorneysocialmedia.com/)
If I was going to go all Internet detective I'd ask the Mormons[1] for genealogy advice. And then I'd carefully check each of these logos:
(http://houstonattorneysocialmedia.com/logo-design-is-the-fou...)
I don't particularly want to pile on (perhaps a bit late) but, while I know nothing about design, I can say that I dislike those logo examples. I also dislike the copy-writing. (Removing the many errors wouldn't help.)
[1] For anyone who isn't aware, the church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (or whatever they're called) have extensive genealogical databases. They're friendly and welcoming to people who'd like to research family trees. At least, when my pa did that in London they made no attempt to convert me and provided him with help using their systems and computers.
I also found that interesting, but being that his two great-grand kids are male, I highly doubt she's a descendant.
Yeah, they really are interested in genealogy for its own sake, not as a recruiting tool. They just want people to do their genealogy and contribute it to the database so it can be used by others. They don't want to scare people away from doing that by using it as a sales tactic. It's part of their general ideology that stresses the importance of family.
What happens if I forget about the issue and never tell GoDaddy the matter is resolved? Is the site permanently down?
It does seem rather heavy for Godaddy to disable the entire site, instead of just the infringing content.
Actually, I use the WTFPL[1] for a lot of code I produce, so yes, you could do that, though it wouldn't be nice to do that.
My opinion is that copyright should not exist. While I can't demand copies from anyone, I don't think anyone has a right to stop me from sharing anything that I have access to, either. Putting things on the internet counts as giving me access. I simply reject the notion that people should be able to control the distribution of digital data. It's both illogical to assert ownership of something abstract and harmful to society at large.
On the other hand, I think people should be credited for their work (if they want). But that's a social issue and not one that can be solved by laws. Look at the scientific community: plagiarism is highly frowned upon and proper attribution is required. And that's mostly by social pressure, not by laws.
So in short, my believe is "Give credit where credit is due, but don't try to tell others what they can or can't do.".
And in general, I don't think it's an unreasonable world-view to dislike something, but be against regulating it. For example, I'm vehemently against right-wing ideology and fascism, but I still would not want laws restricting nazis to voice their misguided opinions, because everybody is entitled to free speech. That's not being unreasonable, that's being consistent.
When you take a photo and put it one your web site, this doesn't mean that anyone can grab it and use it.
The problem here is that people think that they can do what they want on the web and if you just send them a mail they will do nothing. DMCA is globally a bad thing but but its at this time the only way to make people respect copyright. It should go away but for a better law.
You can transpose this to software easily. If you put some of your code on your blog, you expect people to respect the law and so your copyright. If your code is under GPL for example, you don't want other peoples to take it and include it in their commercial product without respecting the GPL.
Look at all the work done by GPL violation and how its hard to make people correct their behavior when your are a now know organization. This men is alone trying to protect its right and the only thing that he can do which is effective is to fill a DMCA.
And remember that the copyright law is what make GPL possible...
It's funny you say that, because RMS has cited the creation of a post-scarcity society has one of the explicit goals of free software. In such a society, copyright would not exist, because everything would be free (as in both speech and beer). The GPL is but a means to an end, not an end unto itself, and it just so happens to use the current system of copyright to progress towards that end.
So yes, without copyright, there would be no GPL. But without copyright, we would not have most of the problems the GPL is trying to solve.
The main problem GPL is trying to solve is to keep code free and this problem wasn't created by copyright. In a society without copyright it would be even more difficult to keep code free.
Copyright just allow you to claim some right over the code you produce. In a society without copyright you would not be able to make this claim so, if you publish your code it will be free, but : - nothing force you to publish your code, you can keep it for yourself and just distribute binary ; - nothing force other people to distribute there modifications of some free code.
Copyright is what allow you to say "this code should be and remain free", the only alternative in the view of the GPL and FSF should be a law who say "all code should be free and remain free" or something like this.
(just to be clear, I'm not a partisan of the GPL but this is my understanding of it)
That's _exactly_ the misunderstanding that gets so many people in trouble.
Whether you like it or not, there _are_ "rules", they're called "copyright". They say that attribution or not, the creator of a photograph has exclusive rights to say what can and can't be done with their work. Nothing about whether you're nice or not, nothing about whether you attribute them or not. If they haven't said you can use it - you _can't_ use it (Yeah yeah, except in some very edge-case calle "fair use", but reproducing an entire photo on your website is _never_ "fair use" - if you are ever tempted to claim fair use, make sure you know exactly what it means first…)
TL;DR, Crazy woman is crazy and wrong. Photographer guy is using the tools society provides to assert rights society says he has. Wishing the laws were different does nothing to change them. Behaving as if the laws are the way you wish them to be has a good chance of making you very unhappy.
But taking something, making money of it and not even attributing where it's from? That's just the lowest of lows.
And she had a simple remedy if he made a false claim; she could have filed a counter notice.
Essentially, don't be a dick and lift someones picture because it's on the internet.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading, great story.
Ah, didn't catch that.
Plus, her claim of being a lawyer makes the whole matter quite baffling.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/fair-use-defense/
I'm not saying that's the case here, but whether the use was commercial or not is one of the four factors considered when deciding fair use.
But just 'cause you could-but-haven't done that, doesn;t mean you can use his without his permission.
(* although they might be able to make some claim you've copied his composition if their photograph has some remarkable enough artistic input beyond "just a picture of a city")